48 NATURE AND CHARACTER. 



tions ; and its governing attribute is, in this respect, 

 superior even to the boasted reason of man, which 

 can enable it to construct its habitations and needful 

 offices, in the full exactitude of pure mathematics, 

 independently of the aid of either rule, line, or 

 compass. * Our Shakspeare, the prince of poets, 

 and the industrious bee for collecting all the sweets 

 of poesy, has beautifully, and with true practical 

 correctness, described the bee of nature. 



It is to be observed, that the principal bee, of 

 which every community of these insects has one or 

 more, was formerly styled the king ; which modern 

 discoveries proving to be a female, have metamor- 

 phosed into a QUEEN. The bee is one of those 

 creatures destined by nature to congregate, like the 

 human, and live in communities under the guidance 

 of an inferior kind of reason, denominated instinct. 

 Thus qualified, the bee wears out its extremely li- 

 mited term of existence in unremitting labour, not 

 for its own individual, but for the common benefit. 

 And, according to the continued observations of 

 studious and curious Apiarians, these insects are 

 actuated by those leading passions which sway the 

 human breast, and endowed with that degree of ap- 

 prehension and discrimination, which enables them 

 to know the persons of their attendants. The simple 

 consideration of a close fellow-feeling, in all respects, 

 of suffering and enjoyment, between brute animals 

 and man, should teach him the great and bounden 

 duty of compassion and of mercy towards them. 



The BEE, or honey-fly, according to naturalists, 

 is of the fourth order of Insects, and has four wings ; 

 Bnd the community or hive, contains three kinds, 



